TR EMERITUS

Prologue: Senior Minister of State for Finance Lim Hwee Hua revealed in Parliament recently that Temasek Holdings lost 31% or $58 billion dollars of its portfolio. However, the matter was not discussed or debated further in Parliament. What do young Singaporeans feel about this ? Do they demand more accountability and transparency from the government ? Excerpts of interview: "They should reveal how much they lost, it is obvious they lost a lot of money, a lot of people are concerned, but it appears that newspapers are not reporting about it." "I think they should let the people know what is the performance like and gives more detailed figures because many figures they give are kind of effy. "A loss is a loss....you can't just say it is a long-term thing, it doesn't make sense....They should be more forthcoming, it is our money after all." "This is quite a big amount of money. I would rather spend this kind of money on our fellow Singaporeans especially during this time of economic crisis." "For Mr Lee Kuan Yew, I think he is going to be about 100 years old ! He actually make Singapore possible.....it is best that we need a new leader to run the country." Results: Number interviewed: 37 Age group: 16 - 20: 8   21 - 25: 7   26 - 30: 12   > 30: 10 Should a Commission of Inquiry (COI) be convened to probe the losses of Temasek and GIC ? Yes: 35   No comments: 2   No: 0 Should an external accounting firm be called in to audit the accounts of Temasek and GIC ? Yes: 36   No comments: 1   No: 0 Do you feel the government has been transparent enough about this matter ? Yes: 0   No comments: 1   No: 36 Do you believe MM Lee's prediction that we will recoup the losses in 30 years time ? Yes: 3   No comments: 7   No: 21  Read More →

I have departed today.   Despite having tendered my resignation from all posts, the media and websites continue to intrude into my private life and privacy. I have been informed by several media that they will continue to publish even more lewd graphical, sensational stories of my private life. I have also been told there will be a fresh assault, with more photographs and videos released and circulated in order to completely degrade and bury me.     This is the darkest episode in my life. I have never felt so alone, vulnerable and humiliated. I need to rest and to search for peace of mind to get away from the stormy events surrounding me. I appreciate the overwhelming support from all quarters, especially my voters, women in particular and party comrades. Words cannot express my gratitude for your gentle kindness.     I have informed my party leaders that I am determined to relinquish all my positions, as a Selangor state exco member as well as the state assemblywoman for Bukit Lanjan. I am thankful for the party leadership's concern and encouragement. I seek their understanding for my predicament.   My commitment to the ideals of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat remains unwavering. I shall retain my party membership and continue to struggle for a just society with the party.   The nation is at a crisis facing a serious economic recession. Unemployment is rising, while corruption remains rampant. I wish public discussions would concentrate on these important issues rather than analysing my private life. My principle remains the same – I will not answer any questions pertaining to my private life. My private life is not for public scrutiny as I have not broken any law or caused harm to anyone.   I plead to the media as well as my supporters to allow me some peace of mind, and to give me space. I urge the media to leave my family, friends and I alone. Please do not continue to shame my family and I, so that  Read More →

By Ooi Kee Beng Once upon a time, before the Internet became as common as the television in Malaysian homes, public figures made local speeches that were tailored to suit the audience that was physically present. This worked well for politicians wishing to entertain the parochial tendencies of the audience of the day without jeopardising their prospects of becoming nationally relevant. Today, however, such speeches quickly leak into the wired world of the Internet, putting things into a different context, and revealing the speakers' supposed real values to the world. Playing local politics with the awareness that the audience is always the whole wide world is no easy task, especially for those who have been in politics and in power long before the Internet changed everything. The dominant Umno learned this the hard way three years ago when it decided to telecast "live" its national assembly. The parochialism and racism expressed by its candidates on that occasion for the nation to hear soon forced it to backtrack. Defensive arrogance does grow out of the inability to evolve. The attempt to block access to Raja Petra Kamarudin's controversial Malaysia Today website last year managed to stop traffic going to that site, but did not stop access to its contents. Mirror sites sprung up immediately to nullify the censorship. The police decision in September 2008 to use the Internal Security Act to jail Raja Petra, along with prominent opposition politician Teresa Kok and journalist Tan Hoon Cheng, merely backfired. The de facto minister of law, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, soon resigned in protest. Publicly calling female bloggers liars, as then Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor did in March 2007, is also not a very smart thing to do. The negative reaction on the web on that occasion was tremendous. Opinions expressed for local consumption becoming national news is part and parcel of a revolution in information technology which carries enormous consequences for the near future. Some are positive, and some will certainly not be. Through the Net, you can sell old useless books you have under the stairs on the world market; you can get to know strangers on the other half of the world merely by being on chat sites; and you can arrange an entire holiday to the south of France without talking to any salesperson at all. In Malaysian politics, we have witnessed how SMSes, videos and phone cameras have come into play. While these can uncover abuse of power, as in the case of the woman forced to do ear-squats naked while detained by the police in December 2005; reveal dubious practices, as in the case of the Lingam Tapes released in 2007 showing a prominent lawyer boasting about his ability to fix top judge appointments through political connections; and contribute to court cases, as in SMSes supposedly sent by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to a lawyer, discussing the detention of a close associate then charged with involvement in the murder of a Mongolian woman. The latest political incident involving IT innovations concerns the circulation of nude pictures of prominent opposition politician Elizabeth Wong, secretly taken on a phone camera. The case of Wong (also a blogger), who has offered to resign from her position as state assemblywoman for the opposition-held Selangor, adds worrying dimensions to the political use of modern IT. First, it is not only the line between the local and the national that is being erased. The line between the private and the public is fading fast as well. That is worrying indeed. Most urbanites in Malaysia of all races, especially in the Klang Valley where Wong lives, would undoubtedly consider Wong the victim. Mass media attempts to class the case as a "sex scandal" — and this happened on both sides of the Causeway — smack of shameless sensationalism, journalistic amateurism and political opportunism. In the sanctity of her home, surely she is allowed to walk scantily dressed, sleep half-naked, even shower nude, and yes, have sex without clothes on. The culprits deserving punishment are those who facilitated the publicising of those pictures, regardless of whether they were taken with her permission or not. The fact that she is an unmarried woman, and not a man, has had a serious impact on how the incident is being interpreted. Should a male politician, married or not, such as former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Khir Toyo, for example, have been photographed in the nude while asleep, the fallout would have been minimal, even comical. The Wong case also shows the disturbing shrinkage of moral space when the private and the local are technologically subsumed under the public and the national. Moral values do differ geographically, individually, culturally and according to lifestyle. This diversity is denied when such a case gets politicised, and here, the supposed sensitivities of the vocally most religious, most parochial, most traditional and most rural are allowed to define the national public norm. Wong is being sacrificed to appease illiberal elements within the opposition. Surely, this is not what the Pakatan Rakyat is fighting for. A political cyber war has started in Malaysia. While we thought that the old would be at the mercy of the new in such a showdown, it is time to realise that, in truth, the more desperate and more immoral has the edge. The writer is a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. His latest book is "March 8: Eclipsing May 13" (with Johan Saravanamuttu and Lee Hock Guan, ISEAS). Source: The Malaysian Insider  Read More →